Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. Every crazy, weird and wacky quote is straight from the pens of Armstrongite leaders or members who think they possess some insight into God and the Bible. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!

Saturday, September 3, 2016

UCG Still Struggles To Make Its Self Relevant

The minutes are out of the latest Council of Elder's Report. Here are some of the highlights.

Chairman Ward welcomed everyone. He commented on the smooth transition from the previous chairman, Robin Webber, to himself as chairman. Mr. Webber has cooperated in every extent of the word and so has Gerald Seelig, the secretary. Transitions can have rough edges, but he thanked them both for helping make it go smoothly.

God forbid if they ever actually elected a newbie to the elite circle of men who keep rotating though this position. It's the good old boys club that never lets in the newbies.Then they announce how mind-boggling spectacular the Ambassador Bible Center is. This is almost as superfantabulous of Dave Pack's group! This is UCG's pathetic attempt at imitating Ambassador College. The ABC "college" only has 23 students! Yes, you read that right...23. Millions of dollars are being dumped into this failure, but no worries, gullible members will continue to support it with their hard earned tithe money.

Ambassador Bible College (ABC) will have 23 students begin classes next week. They are still waiting to hear about the student visa program for approval. New faculty members will include Scott Ashley, Randy Urwiller and Gary Petty.

23....sigh.Every Church of God needs a piece of fine art in its lobby. After all, Herbert did it, so why can't they?

The home office has seen improvement with new carpeting and painting and lighting in the entry way, hallways and conference room. There is also some new furniture. Much work went into it with a lot of work by Tim Sipes. Other improvements upstairs were done as well. There will be a glass sculpture designed with the Church’s Mission Statement for the entryway, to be completed soon. Mr. Kubik was thankful for the faithful service of all the home office employees, and he commented on the family atmosphere that is there.

Let us guess...a lion and lamb? A crystal mosquito net in honor of Vic Kubik? A UCG minister on his knees washing the feet of a member? Well we all know THAT will not be the subject of the sculpture! A crystal Mystery of the Ages or the US and BC in prophecy?Next up, make sure you order your very own static cling window decal so you can advertise Beyond Today as you drive around town. People will be sooooooooo intrigued that they will stop you and ask you questions. Brethren, it is an evangelistic tool! Every UCG member must show their loyal support of the rather pathetic TV show and print rag.

Beyond Today window clings: We still have a supply of Beyond Today car window static clings for ministry and members to apply to their car rear windows. They are available to be shipped to any pastor who requests them for his congregation. They are also going to be provided at all U.S. Feast sites at the literature and information table.

Check out this article about how sneaky and deceitful the Beyond Today program and magazine are: Beyond Today Magazine, United Church of God and Herbert Armstrong.Next we come to a rather interesting admission: UCG members just are not sending in as much money as they used to. UCG is just as good at spinning numbers as their mother church was.

Fiscal year-end: The Church’s fiscal year ended June 30. For the year, Church income exceeded budget by $250,000; but it fell short of fiscal2015 income. It was also noted that year-end cash balances and total assets for the Church were higher than they were in the previous year, for the fourth consecutive year.

UCG is buying more church buildings in the hope of making themselves part of the "community." I hope they do due-diligence in checking out the contributors who will give them a lot of money. UCG does not need a repeat of the Bluefield Church building that was built and paid for by a woman who embezzled money from the bank she was a manager at. UCG had to surrender title to the building because the government was auctioning it off in order to recoup some of the outlandish sum that was embezzled.

Assets: The Church completed the purchase of the Portsmouth, Ohio, church building on Aug. 12. The Church also took ownership of a donated parcel of land for the church building in London, Kentucky. A complete listing of all the buildings and land owned by the Church was distributed.

7.4 billion people exist in the world. Millions have been spent on advertising on TV, Cable networks, Apple TV, Roku and other streaming devices and they added 95 new members. 95!

95 baptisms so far in 2016, which is 38 more than at the May meetings

UCG has been stagnating for quit a while. All of their media campaigns have failed. Hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to being in one potential new recruit. There used to be twice that number at certain WCG Feast sites!

Average U.S. Sabbath attendance for June 2016 was 7,459. Attendance remains steady with no upward or downward trends.

48 comments:

All the members of the board seem to be over 55. Some look like they are well over retirement age. What is the average age of the members? 50,55? This is an ageing church which has no appeal to young people or young families. They offer a watered down version of Armstrongism that doesn't attract hardline Armstrongites from groups like LCG,PCG,and RCG. On the other hand they try to look modern to the outside world but hold on to doctrines that many would reject as being weird and out of the mainstream. Expect future decline of this group. There is no dynamic for growth for the UCG.

Comments made were: "...7.4 billion people exist in the world. Millions have been spent on advertising on TV, Cable networks, Apple TV, Roku and other streaming devices and they added 95 new members...95 baptisms so far in 2016, which is 38 more than at the May meetingsUCG has been stagnating for quit a while. All of their media campaigns have failed. Hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to being in one potential new recruit..."

And the United Ass., like the other xcogs, is still keeping many former wcg hirelings, who left their ministerial credentials behind in Pasadena,CA $employed$...and looking forward to their $retirements$, which is really the main reason their associations/organizations were formed in the first place.

Doesn't that "somehow" make them "successful?" Someone needs to continue to spread out the spiritual "milk," and spiritual "junk food," within this present evil world.

If you were Satan, this world's present evil god, how would you do it? Just continue the confusion no matter what it costs...

At least groups like UCG and LCG try to give year end financial statements and actually advertise their attendance. I know that they are not totally transparent. However, groups like RCG have zero transparency and no accountability. Just try to ask Pack for a year end financial statement. Imagine the response, "How dare you question what Jesus Christ would have "That Prophet" do with His money! And besides I have an empire to build, new houses, etc." It would mean instant disfellowshipment.

And, of course, no other COG even comes close to the growth of RCG. (Even though they are lucky if the have 1500 members.) Just listen to the wonderful statistics that Pack can put together. Of course they change every month depending on what he is trying to spin for that week's message. He routinely claims 30 percent growth, but yet the church size is continually shrinking. He must mean money since his "common" doctrine means that everything you own belongs to him. Since he is Christ on earth, at least that is what he is implying with all of his fancy titles that he claims. Even though he said years ago that he would not claim any titles. But, apparently he has grown in grace and understanding over the years.

It is easy to grow in income when you head an old and aging church membership. And after all the years of service and giving. You simply command them to turn over their retirements also, and work until the finally die. After all, retirement is a sin, so says your Bible. (Although I have looked and still cannot find that verse. If someone knows where it is please let me know. PS; Also the one that says give everything to Pack. PSS; the one that says the millennium comes before Christ's return to earth. PSSS; the one that says all splinters will join RCG. PSSSS; the one that says if you don't do what Pack says you loose salvation. PSSSSS; the list could go on forever, etc.)

Their magazine has 300,000+ circulation and is in an Arms-Race with LCG's 400,000+!These magazines are irrelevant mid-20th-century fundamentalist Adventist CrapThey are nothing but a colossal money-burn like Perbert's pumped up circulation.

Well, if you choose the window narrowly enough there aren't any downward trends. But if you look at the entire 21-year history of UCG, starting at around 22,000, and now down to 7,459, you realize that's a pretty steep downward trend!

The average global growth rate is 1.13% annually. But UCG started out as an old church, so figuring just ½% growth per year, if UCG had simply managed to keep it's people together, from birth rate alone, they would now have about 24,500. Using that as a growth rate, UCG has had an average net loss of about 768 people each year of its existence.

So the only thing UCG leadership has shown any skill at is shrinking itself. That's the one area where there aren't any "broken rungs" to impede its "achievement."

These guys are getting old and decrepit fast. The attrition level from inevitable deaths is going to pick up. Worldwide grew because it had a mass communication outreach that was successful for that time, but those conditions no longer exist and they just don't have any spellbinding orator who can do what Herb and Ted did. Most of the tithe payers are getting old too and their incomes are no longer expanding. If anything, they're declining. I see nothing but decline in the future.

“Beyond Today window clings: We still have a supply of Beyond Today car window static clings for ministry and members to apply to their car rear windows.”

“Static cling” sounds like one of the smaller problems in the UCG. Nevertheless, maybe UCG members could try a bounce fabric softener sheet, which claims to have the following benefits: static control, freshens, helps reduce wrinkles, softens.

This could reduce the safety hazard and embarrassment of that unsightly UCG static cling thingy blocking their rear vision.

Herbert W. Armstrong, the founder of the Worldwide Church of God, died on January 16, 1986.

Joseph W. Tkach, Sr. officially took over running the WCG, but his son Joseph Tkach, Jr. and Jr.'s buddies actually ran the show. They immediately began to make doctrinal changes while denying that there were any changes taking place or planned for the future. Finally, they openly wrote up in the church's Worldwide News newspaper around January 1995 that they were turning against virtually everything that HWA had taught. Shortly after, though, Joey, Jr. brought back tithing. Some things never change.

The apostate Tkaches had tried to make HWA appear to have been inefficient and wasteful, and not to have known how to grow the church properly. The apostates had mocked HWA's claim that the church had once grown at a rate of about 30% a year for 35 years. Now, the apostates--who tried to pass themselves off as so much more educated, spiritual, efficient, thrifty, and wise than HWA at growing the church--have shrunk the WCG down to a tiny, little Graceless Community of Iniquity, as the totally changed organization is now called after degenerating and declining so shockingly. Joey, Jr. had reportedly been willing to lose up to 50% of the WCG members to ram through his massive doctrinal changes, but he should have planned for losing 90%. By 2016 the GCI had shrunk so much that it was planning to get out of town and find cheaper accommodation elsewhere.

A few months after the Great Apostasy of 1995, the disUnited Church of Godlessness, an International Association got started, and it quickly got about 20,000 people from the rapidly fragmenting WCG. The talk at the time was about how the UCG was already at the same number of people that it had taken HWA many years to put together, as if the growth was much faster than anything HWA had been able to do. Of course, the UCG was just quickly getting members from the rapidly disintegrating WCG. The UCG actually got only a relatively small percentage of the many people that HWA had gathered together over the years in the WCG. At its peak, about 150,000 people had attended the WCG's Feast of Tabernacles in the autumn. In his old age HWA had made it appear to be so easy to grow the church that everyone else thought that HWA was senile and that they could easily grow the church too, and even better than HWA had done. The talk at the time was that at the rate it was growing the UCG would have 25,000 people by the end of the year. So, of course, the UCG never got that many people, ever.

The founders of the UCG had planned for months in advance about how to continue to collect their paychecks after their paychecks disappeared along with the collapse of the WCG under the apostates. The first president of the UCG, David Hulme, almost bankrupted the UCG, so he got voted out of office. Hulme then started his own splinter group, known as the Church of Hulme, an International Community of the Vision Impaired, and took a couple thousand people with him from the UCG to waste their time and money doing next to nothing, or maybe less than nothing. Some UCG ministers decided to take their congregations private, and pretend that they were the “vibrant” ministers, but basically amount to nothing. One UCG clown, Ronald Weinland, even started his own circus called the Church of Weinland--Preparing for the Next Guess of Weinland, which specialized in making up ridiculous, short-term, rapidly failing prophetic guesses to attract enough followers to support his travelling and shopping. Still later, the divisions in the UCG led to a major split, with the new splinter group being called the Church of Godlessness, a Worldwide Association. Since HWA had no use for “associations,” some people just have to get the word “association” into their church's name.

Trying to get the UCG to grow by attracting totally new people who had never heard of HWA has proven to be exceedingly difficult. The occasional unconverted weirdo who does come around appears to have been sent to the UCG by demons who have heard of HWA. Actually, even some of the people who came to the UCG from the WCG act like unconverted weirdos. In fact, some people who attend with the UCG really are unrepentant, unconverted weirdos who went along with all the apostate Tkach changes, but who sometimes like to attend with the UCG also to try to cause division there with malicious slander.

The old Tkach enforcers like Victor Kubik have now gotten the upper hand in the UCG. Back in the WCG days, they would do their jobs by expelling faithful members for the apostate Tkaches, and even now refuse to apologize for it, explaining that, “I was just doing my job.”

God has basically stopped calling people. Hence even these recent baptisms are suspect. Doors open and doors close ('the lord giveth and the Lord taketh away'). God has closed a door since their isn't sufficient time left for people to qualify for the kingdom. So much for all this silly talk of Christ returning in a few generations. Rather it's within 20 years.

If the UCG can avoid another split they "might" be able to hold steady at 7500 members over the next few decades. However that will be hard considering the advanced age of many of the members. Also because many of the members will enter retirement age in the years ahead their incomes will decline and also the amount tithed. This will make it likely that advertisement and media budgets will be cut which will result in even less people being reached. Not a good formula for growth!

I love this post. Oh how I wondered too about the only being 23 students. How many have Cogwa got ? Have they pinched them? Is david pack keeping them prisoner. I too had such high hopes for United. They all hate and are jealous of each other inside United, and that's only the ministry. The sins going on are completely hypocritical. Tramps on the street are more righteous. My mind boggles at what the glass sculpture will look like. A glass lifesize jelly similar to kermits the frog sculpture that welcomes visitors to jim hendersons studios.

PS1.29 PM Fibonacci numbers that appear in the bible just from the top of my head:2. Number of eyes, ears.3 Number of days Christ was dead.5 number of fingers.8. Circumcision on the 8th day.13 12 apostles plus Christ equal 13.21 number of days Michael fought Satan in the book of Daniel.144 144,000 in Revelation.233 The number of years from the start of Americas war of independence, and Obama coming to power. Since Obama came to power, black conservative Thomas Sowell has written a 3 part column called 'the dismantling of America.' The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.'

If ones examines longer, there would be more examples of these numbers.

Anoymous September 3, 2016 at 3:01 PM refering to the start of UCG stated that “it quickly got about 20,000 people from the rapidly fragmenting WCG.”

That would be 1995 - so has UCG and it’s various splits actually declined over these last 20 years?

The report quotes “Average U.S. Sabbath attendance for June 2016 was 7,459”.

That is US figures, not whole world figures.

Checking the Feast reports for 2015 may be a bit more accurate. While US sites amounted to 7454 attendees, the total around the world for UCG was 13780.

However, COGWA came from UCG, and their feast attendance was around 9000. So you are already at a figure of nearly 23000.

Add in other ‘daughter churches, such as David Hulme’s group at least 1000, maybe 1500, other groupings such as Church of God Big Sandy, with several hundred, and several other smallish groups, and you are well over 25000, which is higher that the original figure for UCG alone, before these other groupings started.

Not an amazing growth rate, but it is growth, not decline, especially when you allow for those have left through dying over the last 20 years!

Growth! UCG growth? Who are you fooling Questeruk. To quote Roy Holiday, before his health decline 'the entire west coast has gone, decimated, whole congregations have gone..' talking on film which is on the Web. UCG is in serious decline. Your Living in the past that wasn't so sunny in UCG anyway.

You present fantasy questeruk. We all know the feast numbers are much quoted from how many have registered interest in a feast site and always deeply buried further down in the feast reports are the true numbers. They can be as much as 50 people out. All this talk of who came from which group is irrelevant in these times. As I said you are living in a church if God past that does not exist anymore. All the barriers of even ten years ago are down. No one cares who came from which group. The are many brethren crossing from group to group, which was unheard of years ago. Many living brethren are going to Cogwa so Cogwa numbers are not only UCG. Ucg has Grace communion brethren crosing to them. The whole field is muddled. You do not take into account the 'Ratner effect' which Ucg keeps committing again and again.

3.48 AM so UCG plus its splinters today totals 25,000, from UCGs original 20,000.I think your 'increase' assertion debatable. This assumes the splinters are very much like the 'mother' church. But then why the splintering? What about quality in these churches? After all, there are complaints about the watering down of doctrines. UCG publications are soooo flat.I very much question your assumptions.

Questeruk, are you taking into account the fact that "at the start of UCG", there were many many disaffected WCG people - many of whom had not yet joined the UCG, and were still trying to figure out where the "Truth" or "True church" was - and that inevitably many people from those disaffected thousands eventually later joined the UCG?

Having noticed this phenomenon among many people just in my small local area, I think your evaluation needs to be modified- in terms of what the beginning membership was, and therefore, growth.

Also, I'm still friends with UCG members in my area, which is close to their HQ, so I assume that this area gives a fairly good (or better) representation as to what's happening in UCG membership as a whole. Around here, even though new baptisms do happen and are much touted, the sum is that there's still been a slow but steady decline, even when not counting those who jumped ship to the COGWA.

The WCG peaked out shortly after the death of HWA with about 150,000 people attending the F.O.T.

If UCG currently has about 14,000 people attending its F.O.T., that is only about 9.3% of the peak WCG number.

If COGWA currently has about 9,000 people attending its F.O.T., that is only about 6.0% of the peak WCG number.

Neither of these major splinter groups currently has even one-tenth of the number of F.O.T. attendees that WCG had at its peak.

Even if you combine the numbers from both UCG and COGWA, plus add in estimated numbers for various other groups that split from the UCG to try to make up a number like 25,000 total, that is still only about 16.6% of the peak WCG number.

A very important point to remember is that the WCG under HWA was one relatively large church working together as a team to do a great work. The UCG, COGWA, and other groups are currently all split up and ineffective. Even the combined 25,000 number that some would like to make up is still not able to do what even that number of people ought to be able to do if they worked together.

Considering how little (or less than nothing) all the current church leaders have done over the past couple decades--even after starting off with people that HWA had assembled together--you would think that everyone would be ashamed to criticize how HWA had managed things. Can you imagine how huge the church might be today if HWA were still running the show? Nevertheless, the current dividers still seem to think that they are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing.

The problem, 8:19 is that HWA's hook is very much dated. Fear merchantry has become so overused by people outside of religion that the more sophisticated people of today have developed a tolerance to it. They've lived with the bomb since the 1940s. Glaciers and the ice caps are melting, and some folks don't even take the rudimentary precautions which one might see prior to a scale 4 hurricane. Politicians insist that if the other side wins, the battle for the soul of the nation will be lost. Diseases are always a possibility, but somehow they are mitigated before reaching black death levels. People born in the 1980s and after can't imagine what a world without herpes, warts, and AIDS would even be like. Riots and mass shootings come and go. We've had numerous recessions and economic crises.

If HWA were still alive, as have his successors, he too would have reached the point of diminishing returns on British Israelism, whereas in his own time most people first learned of that theory from him. It's doubtful that HWA would have been able to seize the new technology, as he once did the media of his day. No, much of what HWA preached was directly related to the times in which he lived, and it has gradually lost its relevancy as times have changed. It would be one thing if his prophecies had been fulfilled in any meaningful way, but all we see is people who have wasted huge chunks of their lives optimistically fanning the embers. Thirty plus years after his death, he is counted amongst Camping, and all the other failed prophets. Armstrongism is no longer compelling or convincing.

Attendance figures are very easy to obtain, both from UCG & COGWA. Half an hour’s research would verify my statements.

In summary UCG started with around 20,000 attending. With David’s Hulme’s departure that dropped to around 16,000 in 1998. This steadily increased to peak at just over 21,000in 2009.

The COGWA split brought UCG down to just under 13,000 in 2011, and that has since crept up by around 1,00 to 13,780 in 2015.

However, since COGWA is basically a clone of UCG, having the same doctrines, the same government, just different managers, and the reason for the split was entirely political, I think we have to take into account COGWA attendance too. This started around 9,500, and has since slightly expanded to 10,226 in 2015.

The two groups together come to around 24,000 – this ignores various other smaller grouping that have departed over the years. Of the 20,000 attending in 1996 time itself would mean at least 3 or 4 thousand would have died. These numbers, both of departures and deaths have been replaced from somewhere.

My only point in all this is to show that, despite the effort to show that UCG/COGWA is declining in numbers, this is an incorrect view.

The figures are on public record for these groups – anyone can check them. If you doubt me, check it out for yourself.

This thread is now on page two of the blog, and as such this will be my last comment in this particular section.

Perhaps a more technically accurate way to put it would be to say that the number of people in the splinter groups is remaining fairly constant, but the number of splinter groups that the people are dispersed among is increasing.

In the local UCG group there is a trend for better people to leave or get suspended, and for them to be replaced by much worse characters from other groups. This rotation from better people to much worse people is working against the UCG.

It is not just that the overall number of UCG attendees decreases with each split, but that the quality of the remaining UCG attendees is going down too. If you consider the actual behavior of many UCG attendees, you will understand why the UCG will not be amounting to anything great anytime soon. The only hope for the UCG now is that some of them might wake up and repent in the Great Tribulation. That is, if they have not already disappeared back into the world or died of old age before then.

8.19AM your song of praise to Herbie, cause everyone was united in one work, assumes that the work was the most important thing. If that is the case, why did God allow the splintering? Again, the trunk of the tree is that everyone has a right to life, and we relate to others, including the work, via trade. The work is NOT the most important thing. Under Herbie, all the local churches were McChurches with the same lies (the give way) and the same tyranny of the ministers lording it over members. God has lifted the oppressive yoke so that members can grow, yet you yearn for the good old days. I noticed that some members gloated when they perceived other members robbed of their rights by the minister. You must be one of them. Good riddance to Herbie the oppressive tyrant. He will not be in the kingdom, and all these wet dreams of him replacing Christ in the kingdom (like in the book of Samuel) will never happen.

UCG has the same issues that all church groups that deny the truth of science, as people become more educated, they realize that the explanations of presented by the church can only be true if God created the vastly intricate world around us as a means of deceiving us is thus a liar. UCG could save itself if it focused on revamping the interpretations of the bible about the world to be in alignment with what science shows us is true, and focused on how to improve our lots in this life instead of focusing on a superfantabulous (love the word!) future after we die. What happens then is gravy, and a truly loving god would understand the confusion he allows to continue everywhere and respond accordingly.